IF all that President Duterte’s henchmen can come up with against former senator Antonio Trillanes IV is Guillermina Barrido, that means they have scraped the bottom of the barrel and found nothing.
This reminds us of information we got from a source in Malacañang in the first year of the Duterte presidency. The source said Duterte ordered the gathering of “dirt” about his critics, who included Senators Trillanes and Leila de Lima.
The source said after a few months Duterte’s “researchers” came back with some stuff about De Lima that was used against the lady senator, who has been in detention for illegal drugs-related charges for three years. But they got nothing on Trillanes.
“Wala talaga? (Nothing?),” an exasperated Duterte asked, our source said. The “researchers” replied: “Wala talaga (Really nothing), Mr. President.”
The source said Duterte gave a chilling order: “Itumba na lang ‘yan. (Do him in)”
A self-confessed former member of the Davao Death Squad, Arturo Lascañas, revealed in 2017 that he got the assignment to assassinate Trillanes but he told his superiors that it would not be easy because the senator, a former navy officer, has an elaborate security network protecting him.
Duterte’s men tried other means against Trillanes. Duterte tried voiding the amnesty granted to the former senator by former President Benigno Aquino III for the charges of rebellion filed against him and his fellow officers when they stood up against then President Gloria Arroyo whom they accused of corruption.
Last August, the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group filed kidnapping charges against Trillanes and three others — Fr. Albert Alejo,S.J, lawyer Jude Sabio, and a certain Sister Ling of the Convent of Cannussian Sisters. (The DOJ cannot find a Cannussian convent in Metro Manila.)
The preliminary hearing last week was postponed to Oct. 22.
The CIDG charge is based on the claim of Barrido that Trillanes had tried to bribe her to testify against Duterte. She claimed to have been brought to the Cannussian convent and then at the Holy Spirit Convent to allegedly force her to sign a “ready-made” affidavit against the administration.
Trillanes said he does not know Barrido and denied the allegations against him.
An online search on Barrido yielded 2010 news reports about a case she filed against Joavan Fernandez, son of Talisay City Mayor Socrates Fernandez. The report said Barrido “claimed to be a former security guard” of Joavan Fernandez.
An Oct. 6, 2010 issue of the Philippine Star carried a story of Barrido accusing the mayor’s son of threatening to kill her after she quit her job as his bodyguard.
The Philstar report said, “Aside from that grave threat allegation, Barrido also claimed that Joavan was engaged in illegal drugs and has implicated some Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency agents as alleged suppliers of illegal drugs to the mayor’s son.”
Then on Oct. 28, Philippine Star reported that Barrido recanted her statements against Fernandez.
The news report said Talisay City Prosecutor Marshal Rubia said “Barrido has already settled with her former boss Joavan last October 15 when they met before Bulacao barangay chief Raul Cabañero, who presided the mediation between the two of them.”
Ano ba ‘yan?
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